4. Children vs. adults in second-language learning
Motor skills
Articulators of speech
Good pronunciation is clearly an important part of learning a foreign language. The better our pronunciation, the better we can communicate with others. The creation of speech sounds is related to the ability to control the muscles that manipulate the organs of speech. Motor Skills is a term that psychologists use to describe the use of muscles in performing certain skills, from general ones like walking to fine ones like writing and speech. The Motor Skills that are involved in speech utilize what linguists call the articulators of speech. These include the mouth, lips, tongue, vocal cords, etc., all of which are controlled by muscles that are under the general control of the brain. The articulators of speech have to do the right thing at the right time (open the mouth in a certain way, position the lips and tongue in a certain way, etc.), if one is to utter sounds accurately.
Decline in general motor skills
We all recognize that to be able to attain a high level of proficiency in a motor skill, e.g., gymnastics, skating or piano playing, one should start young. But why? Because somewhere around the age of 12 years, the ability to acquire new motor skills begins to decline. The reason for this decline in the fine control of the muscles of the body is as yet unknown, although, since the decline is of such a general nature, involving many muscle groups, it seems likely to be due to some change in central functioning in the brain. Hormonal changes prior to puberty may have something to do with this but this is only speculation on our part.
Decline in ability for new articulations
As we age and as our ability to acquire new motor skills declines, our ability to command our articulators of speech is negatively affected. Consequently, we can expect that children will do much better in the pronunciation of a second language than adults because children have the flexibility in motor skills that adults generally have lost.
A number of studies have demonstrated that the earlier the age at which acquisition of the second language begins, the more native-like the accent will be (Asher and Garcia, 1969; Oyama, 1976; Tahta et al., 1981). The Oyama study of Italian immigrants, for example, showed that the younger the children, the more native-like would be their pronunciation. The subjects were 60 Italian-born male immigrants who lived in the greater New York metropolitan area. The subjects were categorized according to ‘age at
arrival in the United States’ (6 to 20 years) and ‘number of years in the United States’ (5 to 20 years). It was found that the younger arrivals per- formed with near-native English pronunciation while those who arrived after about the age of 12 years had substantial accents.